Ever get a sneaking suspicion that our students may not be totally
focused on the intellectual delights of thermodynamics and transport
phenomena while we're lecturing? It sometimes happens that other
things are on their minds, especially when we're enthusiastically
filling the board with letters, numbers, and squiggles that have
no apparent connection to anything they know or care about. For
example,

Professor Cheever (P): "...and next we'll
examine laminar flow of a newtonian fluid in a circular pipe and
derive Equation 4.5-35 in your text. We first draw this differential
element...and now we itemize the stresses acting on it,
starting with...."

Student A (SA): "Hey Jerry, how's the rest of your
schedule look?"

SB: "Not bad--I've got a couple of humanities courses
so I shouldn't be overworked."

SA: "Unless you get old Ferguson--last spring
she gave us five books to read in the first week, including Moby
Dick. It's about a fish."

SC: "What did he say that arrow pointing up is?"

SD: "Who knows?...I just wonder how I'm going
to make it to December if I'm this lost now."

SE: "No, but I've seen his old tests--you don't
need to understand anything, you just need to plug into formulas."

SD: "Cool!"

* * *

P: "...and as we know from calculus, the limit
of this expression as delta r approaches zero is what?...anyone
remember?...no?...well, it's the partial derivative,
and so we can replace..."

SF: "What say, Chief--coming to the Delta Chi mixer
tonight?"

SG: "No can do--I got a physics test tomorrow and
if I don't get my grades up I can kiss my scholarship goodbye."

SF: "Aw, come on, Sir Isaac--you know that stuff.
A couple of brews and you'll be relaxed and ready to hit that
test like a sledgehammer."

SG: "That's what you said before the chemistry
final last spring and if I remember right you relaxed your butt
into a D."

SF: "Yeah, but that final was..."

SH: "So how'd it go last night?"

SI: "Don't ask...that geek Rachel set me up
with is majoring in soil science or something and he spent the
whole night talking about fertilizer. Let me tell you
a few things about phosphorus that you probably never..."

* * *

P: "Now at this point we introduce the stress tensor,
a convenient and concise representation of the normal and shear
stresses in the..."

SJ: "Yo, Sally--hand me some of them chips there."

SK: "...Problem 3 on the thermo homework?"

SL: "Yeah, it's a killer, but it's cute--you have
to figure out the equilibrium partial pressure of nitrous oxide
to know if the dental hygienist poisoned the bank president."

SK: "Right, I figured that much out, but at that
pressure you can't just plug into Raoult's law and I don't how
how you..."

SJ: "Yo, Gene, can I have a hit of your Dr. Pepper?"

SM: "What time you got--I think this has been going
on for about four hours but I'm not sure."

SA: "Twenty minutes to go and counting."

* * *

SA: "Ten minutes."

SN: "Shh--don't wake Brenda...she's the only
one getting anything useful out of this class."

SO: "It's my grandmother this time--I'll probably
have to go home for the weekend again and just hope I can find
some time to look over the..."

SJ: "Yo, Bruce, hand me a couple of them Cheez
Doodles, would ya?"

SQ: "Hear about Monica, Sheila's roommate?"

SR: "No, what about her?"

SQ: "She's been acting weird lately, just lying
in her room staring at the ceiling for hours."

SR: "Sounds bad."

SQ: "Gets worse--someone found her passed out next
to an empty pill bottle yesterday.Sheila saw her at the
hospital today and thinks she'll be all right but she still looks
kind of green."

SR: "Bummer! That's like what happened to Rudy
last year, only instead of popping pills he..."

* * *

SA:"One minute."

ST: "...ok, now here in Problem 4 what I think
we need to do is..."

SU: "...so the horse says to the chicken..."

SJ: "Yo, Angie, lemme have a couple of those M&M's--I
like the orange ones."

SV: "...and at least we got to do something
in those class exercises Furze was always giving in mechanics--you
make me sit for an hour without doing anything and I'm..."

SG: "...no, we're going down to the beach Friday
right after class-tell Jack and Ella we'll meet Monday afternoon
in the lounge and finish that report, and then we can..."

SE: "... but that correlation only works at
low concentrations. Maybe if we..."

SW (laughing): "That's a good one...did you hear
the one about the rabbi, the priest, and the chemical engineering
professor who were on a..."

SX: "...and he's really mad and told Mom that
he's not going to pay my tuition any more so I may have to find
a job, and I don't think I can stay in school and work enough
hours to..."

SY: "Hey, Cindy--how about asking him if we're responsible
for this stuff on the exam. I love the faces they make when you
ask them that."

SA: "...andthere's the buzzer, and I'm
out of here."

SZ: "Yo, Vinnie, bring your book to the Keg tonight--I
got a few questions about Eq. 4.5-237."

SJ: "Hey, no problem--that one's my favorite.
Come on--let's grab a burger and fries across the street before
we go to the..."

P: "...and now if you substitute this expression
for the friction term you end with Equation 4.5-35. Everybody
understand? Good, see you Friday."